


Final Thoughts

by JazzBaby466



Category: Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French
Genre: Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzBaby466/pseuds/JazzBaby466
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grace's final thoughts, literally. From the stabbing to her last breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Thoughts

It was so quick, she barely felt the knife go in. Skin ripping, delicate tissue opening up easily, the blade sliding between her rips, a small flinch; no more. No excruciating pain, no screaming. Only surprise, a moment as small and as treacherous as going up the stairs at night and putting your foot where you were expecting another step, but where there is only emptiness. 

Her own disbelief was mirrored on Justin’s face. Sweet, gentle Justin. Still holding the handle of the knife. 

She looked down and that thing, stuck in her, was the most bizarre thing she had ever seen. It didn’t help when Justin pulled it out. The sharp metal appearing from between her own flesh was something she simply couldn’t wrap her mind around; a hallucination, a bad trip. 

The others seemed equally shocked. If there were ever words being spoken, Lexie didn’t hear them.

She took another look at each of their faces: Daniel, glasses halfway down his nose; Justin, lips parted slightly, Rafe, gorgeous as ever, even underneath the layer of horror; Abby, stray curls of hair coming loose from behind her ears, her mouth scarlet. And all of them still-faced, frozen in their panic, unable to move. 

And just like that, her mind kicked back into gear. They were unable to move, at least for the moment. Justin was still holding the knife. They had been furious seconds before. This was her chance. She needed to take it. She needed to run.  
Taking her eyes off the others required effort somehow, but she tore herself away. The next part was easy. She was out the door and in the open like a flash. It would take the others a moment to catch up with what was happening. Everything was so surreal. This was her advantage. All she had to do was run now and run fast. 

Lexie was beginning to feel the wound at his point, but only faintly. _It should hurt more_ , she kept thinking. _The knife went in so deep. Shouldn’t it hurt more?_

But, of course, adrenaline was running through her veins, making her feet feel like they were flying over the ground and making her feel light and fast and agile as a cat, and sheltering her, at least momentarily, from all pain. She could feel the blood, though. It was rushing through her body, the way she normally enjoyed so much, her heart and head pounding, but now it was also rushing out of her. She could feel the warmth trickle down her front, seep out in great gushes every few seconds. She tried to press her hands to her front to stop the flow, but it was making running so much harder and she took them away again. She didn’t have time for this, not now. She needed to run, needed to find cover. 

The others would recover from the initial shock soon. They would follow her, she knew it. But she didn’t know what to expect. Her mind was going frantic, throwing distorted images at her. Justin still with the knife, Daniel with the knife, even Abby. But it was ridiculous, the most insane thing she had ever thought, maybe. The others coming after her to finish her off; how bizarre. Then again, they had done it. Blood was running out of her and they were the ones who had done it. They had been so angry. She could see all of their faces still, during the fight. The expressions had burned themselves into her mind, pain paired with pure outrage, all of them, at least for a moment, ready to kill. 

There was another scenario, too, and she didn’t like it much more than the first. The others finally getting a grip, the madness of the last few minutes dissolving and everything sliding back into place, like pieces in a kaleidoscope finally slipping back to show you the familiar image. They would come after her and call an ambulance. She would be shipped off to some hospital, Wicklow, probably, and the doctors would fix her up. And then what? How were they supposed to live after that? Now that they knew that she had been planning her exit? What if she had to stay in the hospital for a long time, until the stitches were healed? Chained to that hospital bed, a prisoner? What if the baby started showing then, after a few weeks? What could she say? What would Rafe do? How could she ever leave them, then? 

This was her only chance. She needed to get away. 

In a way, it felt good to finally run like this, with her feet flying over the pebbles, with the dark shapes of trees and bushes flying right past her, with the lane opening up in front of her. In some twisted way, finally being able to run like this felt like a relief. It was what she had been waiting for, for days now, no, for weeks. Sitting in the library with the others every single day, breakfast with Abby, poker at night, and meanwhile, inside her head, the drums had been beginning to beat louder and louder, the old familiar sound, her cue to take off, a sound like feral dingoes howling in the distance, a steady and ever-growing thumping like wild horses running over dry ground. _Run. Run. Run._

It hit her suddenly that she had delayed things for too long. She could’ve had a deal with Ned long ago. She could’ve been well on her way by now. She had already been thinking about a new name. It was that old rush again. Flick of a wrist, toss of a coin. Where to next? Who to be? Pick a place. Pick a name. Make it work. Shape yourself into anything you want to be. Oh, how she had missed that.  
She’d had two names to think about, this time. One temporary, probably. One forever. One hers, one not; for the first time. It had scared the hell out her, but at the same time, sent her heart racing in the best possible way. This was new. She had never thought she would make it to this point. But she felt ready, ready as she’d ever be. She wanted it so badly, she could feel it in the marrow of her bones. 

Running was getting harder now. Her hectic breath was echoing in her ears. She knew these lanes inside out. She knew where she was going and there was still no sign of the others catching up. But her lungs ached and her heart was going ninety. In the darkness, she tripped, came down hard on her hands and knees. Lexie could feel her jeans rip, more skin opening up, more blood. 

The night smelled of rain. For a second, she wanted it. She longed for the coolness and pureness of water running over her body, soaking her clothes, washing the blood off until it swirled away down by her feet and finally soaked into the ground. She had always loved rain as a child. They had got so very few rainy days, down in Australia, and they had always been so special. It was never cold there, not like here. The abundance of rain in Ireland had made her get used to it, turned it into more of a nuisance than anything else, but suddenly, she remembered vividly how she had felt about it back then. The sun had been hot and blazing most days, the ground too hot to walk on at noon, red sand and heated rocks and dust everywhere, and then the air had changed and the rain had come and washed everything clean and it had felt like you were breathing for the first time in ages. That was what she longed for, as she scrambled back to her feet and ran on, stumbling more often now: standing underneath that huge, endless sky, twirling in slow circles while the rain came down all over her, washed away everything she had been and gave her a chance at something new. 

Finally, the cottage came up in front of her. Her feet had led her here surely, before her mind had made a conscious decision that this was the destination. For a second, a strange desire to laugh bubbled up inside of her. Here I am, she thought. On my walk just like I’d planned. Just like every night. Except for the simple fact that Justin put a knife in me and I’m bleeding the fuck out.  
A question hit her out of nowhere, clear and simple and unanswerable: What would Lexie have done? 

It was hard to disentangle herself from Lexie Madison, but the change had been set into motion a while ago and now, she already knew that she wasn’t Lexie anymore. 

Lexie had been happy with these four. Lexie would have never left in the first place. Which meant that Lexie would have never been stabbed. No, this was all on her. And even if Lexie had, by some inexplicable coincidence, got into a fight this serious with the others, she wouldn’t have run. Lexie loved the others. And Lexie had never heard the drums. No, this was all on her. Whenever the drums started up, the sound of freedom in the distance, that was when she started unravelling herself from the girl she had been for a while, because those girls wanted to stay; they always did. But she didn’t. 

She reached the walls of the cottage at last. It was time. She could barely stand anymore. The adrenaline seemed to have oozed out along with the blood. The panic, the franticness of it all, was beginning to dissolve and was being replaced by something like a strange calmness. 

Here she was now. She had made it to the cottage. What else was there for her to do? 

If the others found her, it would mean either death or hospital. Gone or trapped. She didn’t like either of those options. 

For a second, the unfairness of it all hit her in the face like a slap. She had built this life for herself. Lexie Madison had been tossed to her like an impossible, one-time chance, like a dare. And she had caught it, she had made it her own. She had been Lexie and she had built this perfect, snug little life for herself, and she had been happy, so happy. And now, she had been getting ready to leave it all behind, for something even better. It was her right, wasn’t it, to keep moving? All those meetings with Ned that she had been able to hide from the others. The first dangerous phone call at Trinity. She had managed it all and now, suddenly, this slip-up, this mistake. She felt like a sprinter all ready to take off, only to be held back in the last second. She had been so ready to run again, ready to start anew, and now they had taken it all from her. 

Maybe she should have known that this was going to happen. Of course, she had been close with people before, but not like these four. The intimacy of it all… it was what she had craved, what she had loved, but she should have feared it more. Deep down, she should have known that these four weren’t going to let Lexie go so easily. 

She allowed herself, finally, to collapse against the wall. The feeling of sitting was the best thing she had felt in a long time. One more time, the white-hot anger over being held back and having it all snatched from her hands last second filled her, then she let it go. She allowed her muscles to relax at last and it felt fantastic. 

She pressed her hands to her stomach again. With something like faint surprise she noticed that her shirt was already soaked. So she clenched her fists to the wound, trying to keep in as much blood as possible. Here she had thought she knew instincts. The instinct to run, the instinct to get away from it all and find a new life. It was nothing, nothing at all, compared to this. 

No matter what she told her mind, her body wanted to live, more than anything. The running for cover before, that had been pure instinct. Just like pressing her hands to the wound now. There was the taste of blood in her mouth, but possibly she was only imagining that. Waves of panic went through her. Like a trapped animal, that feral part of her that ran so much deeper than all rationality, reared up in desperation. Her body wanted so badly to hang on. Her heart was still going strong and fast, from the running still or from sheer desire to keep this body going. But breathing was slowly becoming harder. She had no idea what that knife had done to her, exactly. All she knew was that her chest was beginning to feel tight. Catching her breath hurt. The blood was still seeping out of her. 

_Funny_ , she thought suddenly and with it came a sense of peacefulness to counter the animal panic. _Ireland then, I suppose._ Ireland might be her last stop on this wild ride. Who knew. 

People say that in those last moments, your entire life flashes before your eyes. But Grace had never likes clichés. And anyway, she had lived more than one life, far more. 

Her mind, which worked so fast now, racing as if for a big finish, flung random bits and pieces of all of them at her. A gorgeous lake down in New Zealand. A bright pink beach ball in San Francisco and the salty smell of the sea. A fancy, neon orange cocktail umbrella, hanging over the rim of a glass. Red earth in Australia. Surfers in the water. A small, rundown ice-cream shop in North Carolina with the air conditioning on full-blast. And finally, the house. Whitethorn House in all its gorgeousness. And the beauty and calm of Trinity.  
She had seen so much in her life. 

Next, she thought of Grace and then of all of the other girls. Ava. Hazel. Naomi. Alanna. May-Ruth. Mags. Lexie. She thought of each of them one last time, and then they were gone from her mind, like leaves tossed away in the wind. 

Dad wasn’t going to get a birthday card this year, she realized. The thought of his disappointment, of him waiting for a late card and never receiving it, was unbearable, so she pushed it from her mind. 

Rain had begun to fall, at last. She didn’t mind it. The rainwater was cold; the blood running through her fingers so warm.  
She put one hand to her stomach, still clenched in a fist. The baby. She had thought about it all the time these last few days, made all these plans for it. Had the baby never been meant to happen? 

Maybe, she mused, some people simply weren’t supposed to have babies. Maybe, some people were supposed to bleed out at the end of their lives. 

_Mum_ , she thought, and it was the strangest thing she had ever thought. The word was foreign and yet, suddenly, it was the only thing she could think. _Mum._

_Hi, mum._


End file.
